Twitter has reshaped the way how information is flowing. Nanosized infobits enter the system and since there are basically no costs for producing them there are also vast amounts of them. The networks of followers and followees make an ecosystem for announcing, amplifying, filtering out the news value in real time within Twitter, but the information gets transferred to other mediums as well, of course, which makes Twitter a hyperefficient way to allocate attention.
This weekend I wanted to take a look at how German startups use Twitter (for announcements, for communicating with users, for gossip, …) and analyse how many followers they have, what impact it has on their communications strategy and so on – and it was quite a surprise to find out that hardly any German company uses Twitter at all. I may have missed a few, but it actually took me quite a while and URL-guesswork to spot 18 companies out of about 500 which should be aware of Twitter by now and which definitively would benefit from setting up and maintaining a Twitter account.
And many of those who do use Twitter make some pretty obvious technical mistakes like dead accounts, not following their followers, not proactively following influencers or off topic noise. Only a few companies seem to get the marketing and attention potential of Twitter and have a community manager assigned for dropping news every once in a while, responding to feedback and questions and maybe joining a discussion or two.
This is odd, because Twitter is popular in Germany. Many events like Barcamps use Twitter as their preferred medium for announcements and there is a beta hungry crowd of at least 200 people who will sign up to anything if a site gets discussed on Twitter.
Anyway, here is the list of the companies using Twitter we are aware of ranked by the number of followers. Let us know if we forgot anyone and feel invited to join blognation on Twitter.
Updates:
August 13th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
We love twitter
Oliver
August 13th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
true. one can always tell when Sarik has no net coverage - no twittering then. And please Oliver, go on and explain why cellity loves twitter
August 14th, 2007 at 12:55 am
It would be helpful to link the Twitter-URL of the companies as well. I can’t find Mister Wong e.g. Thank you!
August 14th, 2007 at 2:47 am
There are links to each twitter account - the image.
I had to search as well.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:48 am
@Christiane: yep, the links to Twitter were hidden beneath the images. I’ve added textual links as well, thanks for bringing this up.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:32 am
Another german startup is using twitter too: BANKINGCLUB
Snief: No one knows me http://www.bankingclub.de
August 14th, 2007 at 9:39 am
Hier wurde doch nicht etwa der Brabblr vergessen ?
August 14th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Der Brabblr ist doch ganz oben
…Kerwe was?
August 14th, 2007 at 9:51 am
willenlos .. muss mir gleich noch ein redbull suchen
August 14th, 2007 at 9:54 am
LOL Ich empfehle REDBULL - Jägermeister EISGEKÜHLT
August 14th, 2007 at 9:55 am
And I suggest English ;o) Thorsten and I do know you! Would you consider yourself to be a startup? Then you should add yourself to our company index
August 14th, 2007 at 10:01 am
Hello Nicole, i know you know me
and really in the second year i feel like a founder and BANKINGCLUB like a startup…
August 14th, 2007 at 10:06 am
@Nicole: done!
August 14th, 2007 at 10:14 am
What a nice surprise to see “the Brabblr thingy” right behind Qype on a wonderful 2nd place
August 14th, 2007 at 10:28 am
What a nice really surprise to see yuntoo within the german startups
August 14th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
@Nicole: no worries, I am always on. cellity loves twitter, because it´s fun, fast and flowing. And that´s why we brought out the first true mobile twitter client, the cellity tweeter, it´s free and works on almost any phone. Try it out here and become a twitter fan: www.cellity.com/interim/info/twitter.faces
(Sorry for the little sales pitch, Nicole, it was just such a good pass that I had to go for the goal
August 14th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
@Markus Spath
Thank you!
August 14th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Nobody really knows about it yet, but OnlineMusicStar hast a Twitter-account as well. Of course.
http://twitter.com/onlinemusicstar
And Nicole, one of these days I’ll tell you more…
Btw, great to see how the community got going.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:48 pm
[…] durften wir gerade schmunzeln, als wir Yuntoo in Markus Blognation-Artikel über deutscher Startups fanden. Natürlich sehen wir uns dort gerne - keine Frage -, […]
August 14th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
[…] said, our corporate Twitter account has proven to be very useful for us, as Markus from blognation has discovered. blogging, blognation, corporate, Facebook, qype, second life, twitter, […]
August 14th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Townster ist jetzt auch dabei, btw: http://www.twitter.com/townster/
Grüße
Gleb
August 14th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Many thanks for all tips, I’ll add them tomorrow in a batch.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
[…] laut Blognation bekannt wurde, findet sich der sevenload Twitter Account an Platz 3 der meistgelesenen […]
August 14th, 2007 at 6:24 pm
[…] Markus Spath plädiert auf Blognation, dass die deutschen Startups Twitter als Kommunikationskanal nicht ignorieren sollten. Und präsentiert eine Liste der Jungunternehmen, die überhaupt auf Twitter Followers haben. Die Top 10: […]
August 15th, 2007 at 9:47 am
Sarik, hei I asked Oliver to do it, but I am glad you jumped in.
Markus, one more for the list: http://twitter.com/podcastDe
August 15th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
[…] German Startups and Twitter […]
August 15th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
[…] Blognation put it, the sevenload Twitter account is currently in 3rd place for the most read Twitter accounts […]
August 15th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
[…] einer wird die Liste der Twitterfollowers bei Blognation schon gesehen haben. Aktuell sind wir mit Brabblr auf Platz 2, hinter Qype, gefolgt von Sevenload, […]
August 15th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
[…] ist gerade als aufstrebendes Customer Relationship Management-Tool wieder voll im Gerede. Wir mögen neue Spielzeuge und sind jetzt auch voll dabei. Das Twitter nach wie vor die größte […]
August 15th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
it’s because they use Frazr
August 15th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
[…] to blognation, German start-ups aren’t implementing twitter as much as they should be. This is quite surprising indeed, since twitter can be quite beneficial […]
August 30th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Wundere mich nur, dass etliche dieser “Startups” noch schwer in der Alpha-Phase stecken - teilweise ja noch gar nicht funktionieren …
Christiane wonders why most of the sites listed seem to be earliest stage startups
August 30th, 2007 at 9:41 am
Interesting observation. One reason I can think of is that for this “next generation” of startups using Twitter just is the natural thing to do whilst existing services just have not adapted/fully understood this mode of communication yet.
August 30th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I agree - they use it as a means of communication - but are they really aware of using twitter as a marketing tool or as distinct part of their communication strategy? I don’t think so. The use of twitter just reflects their own communication style.
October 9th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
you forgot us
December 7th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
[…] in August I compiled a list of German startups who use Twitter and also wondered why so little use is made leveraging this […]
May 21st, 2008 at 10:10 am
We just started twittering at Photocase too…